When it comes to Carlos Tevez the good almost always outweighs the bad, although sometimes it must feel like a close-run thing for Roberto Mancini.

Tevez has the most goals, the highest number of shots on and off target and more man-of-the-match awards than anyone else at Manchester City. Fouls, offsides and yellow cards? That's Tevez, too – not forgetting edging above Emmanuel Adebayor when it comes to having the most arguments with the manager.

The latest contretemps came when he angrily remonstrated with Mancini after being substituted a minute from the end of a game in which the striker's fifth booking of the season means he will miss the trip to his former club West Ham United on Saturday. Two derive from dissent, another from an excessive goal celebration. Mancini was unimpressed. "He must pay attention to this or we are going to be without him a lot of times," he said. "One is OK, no more."

Yet Mancini had no complaints when he was asked about Tevez's outburst on the touchline. No, he replied, he wanted his players to be disappointed if they were replaced and he wished everyone was the same. "I'm happy. I prefer a situation when important players don't want to leave the pitch." Mancini missed the point, namely that a player can be unhappy without feeling the need to give his manager a mouthful of abuse.

"Seeing Tevez's reaction to being subbed assures me there are problems within at City," Kevin Davies, the Bolton forward, said. "Great players individually but as a team? There seem to be problems there; they do not even seem to celebrate goals together."

Tevez, ironically, conducteda pre-match interview with the club's website, to be shown today, insisting he had no issues with Mancini. "I get on well with Roberto and I back him 100%. We discuss lots of things both in public and in private. We are both passionate football people and we both want the same things."

Davies later apologised for being so outspoken, saying it was not his place to comment about another club, but he did not withdraw his comments. "I think if you are being subbed it is the manager's decision and you should also show a bit of respect to the player coming on. If you have a problem, it is best to sort it out behind closed doors rather than making an issue in front of millions. Don't make a fuss about it in front of the world; speak with the boss after."

Mancini has a tough, occasionally ruthless edge, yet City's manager appears to have decided that Tevez should be given special dispensation sometimes, even coddled. Why? Look no further than the statistic that tells us Tevez now has 33 goals in his 50 Premier League appearances for the club. That, to Mancini, makes him worth the occasional stresses.

Adebayor, a lesser player, does not get cut the same slack, not even on the substitutes' bench. Neither, intriguingly, was Jérôme Boateng, though Mancini maintained it had nothing to do with the training-ground fracas on Friday with Mario Balotelli. "It started and finished in three seconds," Mancini said. "I love Jérôme. He is a good guy and so is Mario. I like these things and sometimes they are important. The photographer must have earned some money. But this situation happens in every team every day."

Balotelli, to give him his due, appears for now to have taken on board his manager's advice not to argue with referees or react to opponents, playing with considerable restraint in the face of occasional provocation. "He would probably have reacted a few weeks ago," Mancini said. "You get a lot of kicks in the Premier League, it's different to Italy but he can score a lot of goals for us."

Balotelli and Tevez, together with David Silva and Yaya Touré, menaced Bolton's defenders but City's inability to add to Tevez's fourth-minute effort is becoming a common theme, no other team in the Premier League having scored fewer home goals. Mancini complained that the strikers had been "selfish" and it turned what should have been a routine win into a frantic finale, particularly once Aleksandar Kolarov had been sent off for two bookings in four second-half minutes.

"As much as we were not at our maximum, we were always in the game and could have nicked a point," Owen Coyle, the Bolton manager, said.